Payne and Lee Reach Both FILA Easter Bowl 18s Finals, Latak Hopes to Follow in Sister's Footsteps in 16s Final; 14s USTA Hard Court Champion Kockinis Aims for Another Gold Ball in G16s

©Colette Lewis 2025--

Indian Wells CA--

Bella Payne and Tyler Lee have had decidedly different paths to the FILA Easter Bowl 18s finals, but the unseeded pair will play for two titles at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden Sunday.

Payne, who won the 16s singles and doubles titles last year, has lost only 14 games while extending her winning streak in singles to 11, with her 6-1, 6-2 semifinal win over Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann an especially satisfying one. Earlier this month in the first round of the ITF J100 in Las Vegas, Payne had lost to Drenser-Hagmann 6-2, 6-4, but she learned her lesson and applied it today.

"In Vegas I was definitely overplaying, being very aggressive," said the 17-year-old left-hander from Florida. "She's a very aggressive player as well, and I think I needed to stay more solid and mix it up a lot more with the slices, shorter balls, high and heavy balls and then going big at her. I didn't play very smart in Vegas and she was playing amazing, but today, staying solid was definitely the big changeup."

Payne's opponent, No. 9 seed Nadia Valdez, does not share Payne's affection for the desert, and even after reaching her first USTA Level 1 final with a 6-3, 6-2 win over nemesis Nicole Weng, also a No. 9 seed, she has been slow to warm up to it, even after defeating top seed Thara Gowda in the third round.

"I don't really like this place," said the 15-year-old from San Antonio, who had lost to Weng the last three times they've played. "It's kind of slow and I play on fast courts. I love California, but I don't like this place because I didn't do too well last year. Right now I love it."

Payne and Valdez met recently in the UTR Pro Tennis Tour event in Atlanta, with Valdez winning 6-3, 6-7(3), 6-3, but Valdez is right to be wary, as this week Payne has already beaten two players who posted wins over her earlier this month, surrendering just four games in the process.

In contrast to the domination Payne has shown in her last two runs to the final at the Easter Bowl, Lee found himself in a third set for a fourth consecutive match against unseeded Cooper Han Saturday back on Practice Court 12.  After his 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(3) win over top seed Shaan Patel in the quarterfinals on the show court, Practice Court 2, Lee found himself thinking about another tiebreaker at 5-all in the second set today, one that did not materialize in his 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 victory.

"He played really solid then, locked in, and I think I just went away," said the 15-year-old from Orange County. "When I went down 5-6, we were just holding serve the entire time and I thought I just need to get to a breaker, because I've been playing breakers pretty well, and I put too much pressure on myself."

With all the experience he's had with the 10-minute break between the second and third sets this week, Lee has developed a routine, getting advice from his coach J.C. Beeson of Veylix  Tennis, and going to the rest rooms.

"I use the rest room to reset mentally," said Lee. "I want to go in the rest room and come out of it a completely different person, a new mindset and a good amount of energy. And I think physically getting off the court and getting back on really helps refresh my mind."

That was evident in the third set today, with Han holding to open the set and Lee reeling off six straight games to set up a meeting with another unseeded finalist seeking his first USTA ball in singles, Nikolas Stoot.

Stoot, who received a last-minute wild card into the ITF J300 FILA International Championships two weeks ago and won two matches, was not certain he was going to return for the Easter Bowl, with an injury his prospects and another cross country trip from his home in Miami also giving him pause. 

"I almost didn't come due to a little shoulder injury," said the 17-year-old left-hander, who trains with Robert Gomez in Coral Gables. "The day before my dad said, you're not going. But we kind of took the chance, and it's feeling good, one hundred percent now."

Stoot's 6-4, 7-6(2) win over the last seeded player in the boys 18s, Winston Lee, took more than two hours, with Stoot fighting back from 5-2 down in the second to avoid a third.

"To be honest I thought, what would Djokovic do," said Stoot, who has verbally committed to LSU for 2026. "I just started to play a little bit smarter, go for higher percentage shots and that started to work. And I started serving a lot better in the tiebreaker as well."

Stoot took control in the tiebreaker by winning both points on Lee's serve after leading 4-2 at the first change of ends. A good first serve that Lee couldn't return gave him the luxury of four match points, and he converted the first, with Lee hitting a forehand well long.

Stoot and Lee haven't played, but they did warm up together Friday. 

"I actually just met him yesterday, we hit for a warmup, but I saw him playing, and he's a really good player," Stoot said. "He hits the ball really clean, really hard, so I'm excited for tomorrow."

As with the 18s, only one of the four finalists in the 16s has any experience in a final, with 2024 14s USTA Hard Court champion Armira Kockinis earning another shot at a gold ball with a 6-4, 6-2 win over No. 3 seed Carlota Moreno. 

Kockinis got off to a slow start, trailing 0-3, love-40, fighting nerves, but the 15-year-old from La Habra California, who trains at Tier 1, the same academy as Learner Tien and Alex Michelsen, gave herself a pep talk.

"I was like, you know what?, if I go out, I'm not going to go out because of nerves," said Kockinis, a No. 9 seed. "I'm going to go out because she's just better than me. So I said, ok, we're just going to play."

Kockinis admits that with their travel schedules on the ATP Tour, she doesn't see much of Tien and Michelsen, but she can't help but be inspired by them.

"I am able to look up to them," Kockinis said. "Hopefully I can achieve what they have, it's obviously pretty cool."

Kockinis will face friend Carolina Castro, the No. 7 seed, who defeated wild card Ciara Harding 6-4, 6-3 and will win her first USTA ball regardless of her result in Sunday's final. 

"Last year I got eliminated in the first round of the tournament," said the 16-year-old, who trains at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park Maryland. "And now I'm in the finals, it's crazy. It means a lot to me to be here."

Castro said she was relaxed throughout the match, even though Harding, who had eliminated top seed Anna Bugaienko in the first round, was playing well.

"I didn't really feel any pressure, because I know she's good and I know she's playing some really good tennis," said Castro, who will represent Puerto Rico in the Junior Billie Jean King Cup North American/Caribbean qualifying next month in Montreal Canada. "But I have too. I know how she plays, really flat, but also crafty, so I knew I had to get out of her comfort zone, hitting heavy, slicing a lot, coming to the net, and that's what I did."

Kockinis and Castro had warmed up together the past several days, but Castro said that is probably not going to happen on Sunday.

"It should be a good match," Castro said of their first meeting. "She hits really heavy, she's a very good player, very aggressive."

The boys 16s final will feature two players who had their breakthroughs, not today, in making in the championship match, but yesterday, in finally getting out of the quarterfinals of a major USTA tournament. 

Marcel Latak rolled over fellow No. 9 seed Keshav Muthuvel, who had taken out top seed Safir Azam in the quarterfinals, 6-1, 6-1, committing to an aggressive style before the match had even begun. 

"I knew he was more of a counterpuncher, so even in the warmup, I was going to be trying to play quicker, warmup inside the baseline, so I could prepared for what I needed to do in the match today," said the 16-year-old from Chicago. "And it did help a lot. From the first point, I was already pressing him, and it worked."

This week Latak has had the support of his parents and his sister Thea, who won the Easter Bowl 12s title in 2019, when he nervously watched her beat Daniela Borruel 7-6(3), 6-3.

"It's a full-circle moment," said Latak, who was 10 at the time. "I was here, watching her play, when she won. I was so nervous, oh my gosh, and now it's her turn."

Latak said getting the 6-2, 6-4 win over No. 9 seed Rowan Qalbani was a big step. 

"I've been to three quarterfinals in Nationals (Level 1), I think and never won one," said Latak, who reached the semifinals of the prestigious Les Petits As tournament in France in 2023. "Yesterday was probably one of the tighter matches I've played because I was like, this is my moment, I've got to go for it."

No. 8 seed Tristan Stratton had an even more futile record in quarterfinals, but the 15-year-old fought back to beat fellow New Yorker Alexander Suhanitski 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in the only semifinal match to go three sets.

"I was in seven quarterfinals before this, Marcel and I were talking about that, 12s, 14s and finally yesterday I broke through to get to semis and even now, to the finals," said the 15-year-old, who trains at the John McEnroe Tennis Academy. 

Stratton had to ride a lot of ups and downs in the final, after losing an early lead in the first set, but after winning the second set, he was right where he wanted to be.

"I felt really good going into the third, because in my first three matches I won all of them in the third set," Stratton said. "So I feel very confident in the third set, and took a lot of confidence going into the third."

Stratton used the 10-minute break between the second and third sets to call his coach back home in New York.

"He's been watching the live stream, so he just told me just keep playing backhand to backhand, because I have a good backhand," said Stratton, who admits he is much more comfortable playing indoors. "He just said trust your game and mix it up, and it worked."

The doubles finals are set for Sunday afternoon, with both Payne and Lee in two championship matches.

Payne and partner Emily Deming, both future Georgia Bulldogs, will face Amy Lee and Kenzie Nguyen for the girls 18s doubles title, with both teams unseeded.

Payne and Deming defeated unseeded Bella Jacutin-Mariona and Chloe Qin 6-2, 6-1, while Lee and Nguyen took out No. 5 seeds Carrie-Ann Hoo and Isabelle DeLuccia 6-3, 6-1.

Lee and Brayden Tallakson won another all-unseeded team match, beating James Quattro and Nathaniel Suh 6-3, 6-2, and will face unseeded William McEwan and William Kleege for the gold ball. McEwan and Kleege defeated No. 5 seeds Andre Alcantara and Rishvanth Krishna 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.  Lee can add to his collection five USTA balls, all them in doubles, with a fourth gold in doubles Sunday.

In the boys 16s doubles final, No. 5 seeds Nicolas Pedraza and Erik Schinnerer will meet unseeded Akshay Mirmira and Boning Wang after Pedraza and Schinnerer defeated unseeded Mason Vaughan and William Zhang 6-4, 6-1 and Mirmira and Wang beat unseeded Peyton Barrett and Anthony Dry 6-4, 6-3.

The only final featuring the top two seeds will be in the girls 16s doubles, with No. 1 Kingsley Wolf and Autumn Xu playing No. 2 Carlota Moreno and Addy Rogin for the title.  Wolfe and Kingsley beat Sydney Barnhart and Ariana Morris 6-4, 6-2, while Moreno and Rogin rolled past Whitney Burke and Kaiden Greer 6-1, 6-0.

The live stream of Practice Court 2 matches, with commentary by Ken Thomas, will be available on the Easter Bowl YouTube channel, with the girls 16s final and the boys 18s final expected to be assigned to that court.

The consolation semifinals and finals are also scheduled for Sunday, along with third place matches in both singles and doubles. 

For all the results, see the USTA tournament page.